sam (i ham, o sam), pl. saim, coll. pl. sammath
Sindarin
sammath
noun. chambers
sam
noun. chamber
sam
noun. chamber, chamber, [G.] room
Cognates
- ᴹQ. sambe “room, chamber”
Element in
- S. Sammath Naur “Chambers of Fire” ✧ LotR/0942
sam
chamber
sam
chamber
(i ham, o sam), pl. saim, coll. pl. sammath
The word sammath “chambers” appeared in the name Sammath Naur “Chambers of Fire” for the cavernous chambers in the interior of Mount Doom (LotR/942). It appears to be the class-plural of an otherwise unattested noun ✱sam “chamber”.
Conceptual Development: Earlier forms of this word were G. tham “chamber, room” from the Gnomish Lexicon of the 1910s (GL/72) and N. tham “hall” from The Etymologies of the 1930s under the root ᴹ√STAB (Ety/STAB). The Gnomish word was cognate to ᴱQ. sambe “room, chamber” in the Qenya Lexicon of the 1910s under the early root ᴱ√SAMA (QL/81), though the Gnomish form tham indicates the actual form of the root was (or became) ✱ᴱ√ÞAMA. Likewise the Noldorin word in the 1930s was cognate to ᴹQ. sambe “room, chamber” but with a distinct gloss = “hall” (Ety/STAB). The form sammath from the 1950s may indicate another revision of the root to √SAB or √SAM, though both of these conflict with other roots from the 1950s and 60s: √SAB “believe” (PE22/158) and √SAM “to have” (PE17/183).
Neo-Sindarin: For purposes of Neo-Sindarin, I prefer to retain both S. sam “chamber” and N. tham “hall”, so I would assume that S. tham and Q. sambe where both derived from ᴹ√STAB, but that in Quenya the word meant “room, chamber” while in Sindarin it meant “hall”. Furthermore, I would assume that prior to the arrival of the Noldor, Sindarin architecture mostly consisted of single-room houses or large buildings with a great hall without subdivision into smaller rooms or chambers.
When Sindar adopted the architectural practice of subdividing houses and buildings into multiple rooms from the Noldor, they borrowed Q. sambe as S. sam to mean “chamber, ✱room” as a way of distinguishing a “room” from the older Sindarin word for “hall” = tham. I would further assume that tham came to be used for ordinary “halls” joining distinct chambers, and that [N.] thamas “great hall” was coined to describe a great central hall. This is an entirely fan-based etymology, however, purely speculative.